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I woke up this morning (Sunday) with a list of things to do. My husband was leaving to spend the day with one of my kids. Another kid came home, but he wanted to study. I pretty much had the day to myself.

I had a list:

1) Finish cleaning the bathrooms.
2) Read and judge a contest entry (note to self—stop saying YES)
3) Go buy the stupid vacuum. Don’t ask. I mean really, how hard is it to pick and vacuum and buy it? I make major decisions all the time, but this vacuum thing is killing me. Anyway…
4) Work on a synopsis. Love the story idea, not sure I love the way I’m getting it down on paper.
5) Go to the store and pick something up for dinner because oldest son is here.
6) Go swimming, enjoy the pool.
7) Answer email and write cheerful happy notes to all my friends going off to the Romance Writers of America Conference and leaving me all by myself. Not that I’m jealous or anything. It’s my own fault, by the time I got around to registering the hotel was full and I didn’t want to stay at an offsite hotel…sigh.
8) Write the Murder She Writers Blog. I usually do it on Sundays.

That was just the start of my list but I was raring to go. I came downstairs bright and early for my cup of coffee and made the fatal mistake of thinking I’d read a couple chapters of a book while drinking my coffee.

Then I read a couple more chapters.

Crap, look at the time! Having enormous self-control, I put the book down and took a shower. I had plans to get stuff done! I can read later! I got in gear, did the shower, dress and fluff routine and cleaned the bathrooms! I was on a roll.

But tired, right? I deserve a little break. I poured some more coffee and thought, I’ll just read another chapter. Just one…

My son rolled out of bed at noon, came downstairs and started chatting. Guess what? I can still read and talk to a kid. I still got it! I can still multi task!

Wait, task…didn’t I have some things to do? Something? I asked my son if he was staying for dinner.

Yes, darn it, and he wants lemon chicken. I slapped the book down and went to the store to grab some chicken. On the way home, I thought about how much time I’m wasting reading this book. It’s a gorgeous Southern California day and I’m letting my pool out back go to waste…and then it hit me…

I can swim and then read on the lounge! Which I did! It was wonderful.

Later, I came inside to find my son studying. “Hey,” I said smugly, “I bet you wish you could go in the pool!”

“Yes,” he grumbled. “But I want to finish my laundry, wash my car and read three more chapters before I go home tonight.”

Spoilsport. I don’t know where he gets the mean streak. “I have time,” I muttered and looked at my watch. Four O’clock! Where did the day go! The hubby and another kid will home around five, then there dinner and other things to get done. The day somehow slid away from me. It’s not fair, I was SEDUCED. The book is BEYOND THE HIGHLAND MIST by Karen Marie Moning. What seduced me? The characters…they seduced me. It’s not my fault! I just kept having to read one more page, then one more…

Besides, so many people are gone to either RWA Conference for Thrillerfest that no one is probably reading this blog anyway. But if anyone is out there—am I the only one? Or have you been seduced too?

And I’m off and running. While Allison trekked the mall for the perfect RITA dress yesterday, I’m trekking off today in search of the perfect haircut and pedi. I have so many things on my list of things to do, I doubt I’ll stop until I drop at the end of the evening. Well maybe not. We’re having dinner with friends tonight. They are good friends we don’t get to see much of with both of our crazy schedules so it will be nice to curl up around a nice glass of cab and visit.

Saturday morning I’m off and running to one of my local RWA Chapter meetings where I’m part of the Boot Camp for National workshop. Following that, off to a promised shopping spree with number one daughter. Sunday? If the family thinks they’re getting a big dinner out of me they have another thing coming. I need the day to put my suitcase in order. Monday morning, it’s up by 3 a.m. and off to the airport for a 6:25 a.m. flight to Dallas.

I still have a scene I want to rewrite for the novella I just turned in, and my editor wants it Monday. I meant to do it yesterday/last night, but my youngest son had his wisdom teeth pulled yesterday morning. While he was a decent patient, he was a little bastard until the anesthesia wore off. He then profusely apologized for being, ‘such a jerk.” Hrmph. Jerk was mild.

Anyhoo, changing gauze very 20 minutes for two hours, keeping him iced, hydrated and medicated, and then making sure my surly patient didn’t do anything dumb was time consuming. Then there was the trouble shooting with the business, and life in general stuff. Just when I sat down to begin the scene, my son comes into my office and tells me he’s hungry. “Would you make me some of that garlic and butter pasta, mom?”

Oh sure, he’s sweet as pie now.

Okay, so the point of this blog wasn’t to say wha, I’m so busy, it was to say, wha, I’m so busy I can’t think of a decent thing to blog about today! I was going to blog about men and what lousy patients they are, but didn’t feel like it. Then I was going to do a google search for the infamous SFPD video a bunch of cops did off duty and got slammed for by the mayor and Chief. I have to say it was hilarious! There were 23 involved and they all got beach time. The first cop who sued the city over it won today. I was happy for him. I hope the others get their pay for their beach time and the suspension cleared from their records. The video was done in fun, for a Captain’s retirement or birthday or something. The city says it was embarrassing, slanderous, racist, blah blah blah blah. What it was, was hysterical.

But I was too lazy to dig for it. Sorry. Just too much on the old brain right now to think a coherent blog thought.

With that sorry excuse, I will bid adieu until next week. I hope to blog Friday, but I’m slammed at conference. And, um, I like to party, so no guarantees you’ll hear one peep out if me until I’m back safe and sound in Cali.

Ciao!

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Sorry, gang, I’m running late . . . I’m off to meet my mom at the mall to buy a dress for the Ritas . . . I was going to wear this nice cocktail dress that I’d worn at the PASIC editor/agent reception, but Rocki (Roxanne St. Claire) threatened to disembowel me. Okay, not that harsh, but close!

Part of the problem is that I haven’t lost the weight I wanted to lose. I don’t know why. I’m active. I don’t eat junk food. I guess I just like the good food too much! And I’ve had no time to get back into the gym habit. So trying on beautiful dresses doesn’t hold the allure for me as it would for someone as cute and SKINNY as Rocki (Really, I love her, I’m picking on her because she’s cuter and skinnier than me! There, I admit it, I have green eyes.)

Anyway, so right now in my life I’m wrapping up the edits for KILLING FEAR. The last third of the book has taken a completely different direction. My editor was fine with the ending, and it was good, but because of other changes I made at the beginning and middle of the book, the ending no longer works the way it is written. Which means that I’ll be busting my butt to get the changes done and in by July 9. Too bad I can’t bust the fat cells out of my butt at the same time!

Then I’m off to RWA in Dallas. I’ll admit, I’m really bummed that I’m missing Thrillerfest, but I would be bummed missing RWA if I had made the decision to go to TF. Until I learned about THE KILL finaling in the Ritas, I was planning on flying to NY on Friday. I know of some other authors doing exactly that. But . . . there’s always next year!

And when I get back, I’m diving into my novella revisions which are actually pretty minor (yeah!)

What are your plans for July? Anything fun?

Friday Morning Update: So I was trying to post last night and my cable was down! Urgh . . .

I tried on about 15 dresses at Nordstrom’s and found one my mom and I loved. Put it on hold to head over to Macy’s and make sure I still loved it. Tried on about 20 dresses at Macy’s, nothing for the Ritas worked but I found an absolutely lovely cocktail dress so I snatched that. Will probably wear it Thursday . . . so then we went to lunch, shopped at a couple other stores, and headed back to Nordstrom’s. Told her I wanted the dress, took it up to the bra department and discover there is no bra that works with it. She said, gotta go braless. Hmm, after nursing five kids–NOT! I was really bummed.

So we scoured Nordstrom’s again and pulled another 10-12 dresses off the racks and SURPRISE! TWO actually fit well and looked decent. One off-white with a high beaded front, the other a v-neck black with a beaded front. We picked the black one and my mom said she liked it even better than the chocolate brown gown we first loved. (I just hadn’t wanted to wear black because I figure everyone would, but this is good for me.)

Fortunately, I was in the mood to shop. I got a nice outfit at Coldwater Creek (one of my favorite stores) and some casual shirts and pants at Jones New York. We were there for six hours, and I could have gone longer! LOL. Sometimes I’m totally not in the mood to shop, other times I get into the spirit.

The only thing I have left to do is buy a new pair of shoes. I need nice, 2-3 inch black shoes. I have a pair of black shoes, but they’re lower heels, and my other pair of black pumps are suede. No go there. But shoe shopping? That’s always fun

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Since today is Independence Day, I’d like to commemorate the occasion by sharing a speech that was given by one of our presidents some twenty-six years ago. In my opinion, it is as relevant, if not more so, today, as it was back then…
* * * * * * * * *
For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.

I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures.

No later than the third of July — sometimes earlier — Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We’d count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July.

I’m afraid we didn’t give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I’m sure we’re better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant “cracker” — giant meaning it was about 4 inches long. But enough of nostalgia.

Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.

There is a legend about the day of our nation’s birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words “treason, the gallows, the headsman’s axe,” and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, “They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever.”

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, three million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.
–Ronald Reagan, President of the United States (1981)

Corrections Officer Stephen Anderson was just doing his job, escorting a prisoner to have an MRI done at the University of Utah, on Monday, June 25, when he was shot and killed by white supremacist Curtis Allgier.

Anderson was a father and grandfather, active in his church and community, and he was, as I said before, JUST DOING HIS JOB. Unfortunately, his job is one of the hardest ones out there.

Allgier, after the murder, short-lived escape, and recapture, has talked extensively to the media.

He claims he did not ever intend to kill Stephen Anderson. I disagree.

“I just got recently sentenced to 104 months with the Feds and I lost everything I had. I lost all my people pretty much. My dad’s dying, my lady’s just gone. I lost everything and so when the MRI was done, I went back in the room, I put my jumpsuit back on, and I told him, I said, ‘Look, I’m going out that door and you’re not going to stop me. So just let me walk out the door. Call the cops when you’re done, do what you gotta do, but just let me walk out that door.’ And instead, he just rushed me. When he rushed me, he grabbed me, and he had one hand on my ****, and the other hand was wrapped around me. And I’m like, ‘Dude, let go. Let me go out the door.’ And I wasn’t trying to hit him; I wasn’t trying to hurt him. He just kept going.

“So finally, we start fighting and he grabbed his gun and starts swinging his gun around. And I put my shoulder into him so it would drop and it fell to the ground. And then he kept trying to fight, and I’m like dude just let me go and he wouldn’t let me go. So I grabbed the gun, and I’m like, ‘Look, now I’ve got your gun, and I’m going out that door. Let me go, and call who you gotta to call when you’re done.’ And he wouldn’t let go and he wouldn’t let go, so I started going to the door. When I reached for the door handle, I had one hand on the handle and he would not let me go. So I hit him with the gun and it went off. He dropped, I ran out of the room.”

When Anderson told everyone, via his explanation, that he was “going out that door” and that nothing would have stopped him, he admitted that his intent was to escape at all costs. The cost ended up being the life of Stephen Anderson.

I do not know how this will play out in court, but in my mind, Allgier had every intention of killing anyone who stood in his way, and he certainly didn’t expect a trained corrections officer, who carried a gun to GUARD his prisoner, to just LET HIM WALK OUT, did he? The way Allgier tells the story, that is exactly what he DID expect.

One interview I listened to had him saying “I told him, you make $15 an hour, it’s not worth fighting me.”

Allgier, a heavily tattooed white supremacist, is hard to look at, and in my opinion, just as hard to listen to. He claims his reason for talking so extensively to the media is to assure that people don’t think he planned to kill Stephen Anderson, but I believe this is negated by the fact he admits he was going to escape NO MATTER WHAT IT TOOK.

I don’t know if his reasoning for the media barrage is an attempt to avoid the death penalty, and I’m no lawyer, but I think it backfired.

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Bio:

Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-four romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children.

New Release:

Maximum ExposureFebruary 4, 2014

Two years before the events in Notorious, Max travels to Colorado Springs to investigate the disappearance of a college student. Frustrated over the lack of interest from both friends of the victim and campus authorities, Max tags along with the leader of search and rescue and his dog through the beautiful and deadly Rocky Mountains in the hopes of finding answers. Every answer she finds leads to more questions--questions neither the police nor the college want Max asking.
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